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File:pretty.png (6.87 MB,3840x2160)

 No.120996[Last50 Posts]

You're watching the four gorgeous shows currently airing, right? It's amazing to see these every week. Dungeon Meshi and Urusei Yatsura extend into Spring, but I'm definitely going to miss Undead and Frieren. I feel like the "anime is terrible since ####" people really need to actually pay attention.

 No.120997

need to watch more anime...

 No.120998

>>120996
> "anime is terrible since ####" people really need to actually pay attention.
they just can't accept that they are not the main target demograpic anymore and have fun
>>120997
Same

 No.120999

Anime is terrible since I personally stopped liking it?
>>120998
What's the target demographic? Japan is older

 No.121000

File:[SubsPlus ] Gushing Over M….jpg (264.91 KB,1920x1080)

Anyone that can look at this season and say that anime is dead has simply already moved on as their soul has been wretched from their body. This season rocks.

 No.121001

File:90e7446ca1.gif (1.8 MB,640x480)

Nah, I don't care about fantasy.

 No.121002

File:ozen sipping milk.png (185.92 KB,450x650)

I wouldn't say "anime is terrible" right now, but it's definitely not as good as how it was during the 00s in my opinion. The 90s and 80s are overrated mostly for nostalgiafagging purposes, but the 00s were genuinely full of great shows that simply aren't present in the same quantities as the modern era. Like, you will get an occasional standout like Bocchi, Frieren, Ousama Ranking, Made in Abyss, etc, but when you look at some charts from, say, 2007, there were tons of shows in the same quality as those airing in a single year. It is similar to videogames in that PS2 era was also its peak (in my opinion of course) and the decline since then is due to the mass globalization/popularization of the media. I can say that I watch more modern anime than I play modern videogames though, so it hasn't gotten that bad yet. My standards for anime aren't high in the first place while I have trouble putting with a mediocre videogame with an inflated bullshit critic rating.

I'm watching Frieren and Dungeon Meshi out of those four in the picture by the way.

 No.121003

>>121002
I generally agree with your sentiment about the abundance of excellence in the 00s that we don't see much today. But for this season I have to disagree. I think that what we're experiencing right now is much more akin to the 00s period than any season in recent memory, with amazing anime one after the other. This is all while next season is primed to have the return of S&W which if they don't fuck it up should be a 10/10.

 No.121004

File:mew mew layouts.mp4 (19.74 MB,2240x720)

>I feel like the "anime is terrible since ####" people really need to actually pay attention.
I feel like people who say shit like this have no clue what tradeoffs have been made over the years as artistic priorities and styles have shifted, so they aren't armed to even start having a discussion. What I mean is you need to be able to point at what's objectively shifted over the years before you talk subjectively about how you like any of those things.

 No.121005

File:ozen slam dunking.png (123.46 KB,450x500)

>>121003
It's only a single season and we are only at the beginning of the year, but 2017 (the /qa/ year) was the strongest year in recent memory for me. I listed Made in Abyss which was my favorite show from that year but it also had a lot of other good stuff like SSR, Mahoutsukai no Yome, 3-gatsu no Lion, etc . Yes, I know that was 7 years ago, but it feels like it was yesterday to me. Please be patient with this ojisan.

 No.121006

File:[Aria] Houseki no Kuni - 0….png (2.48 MB,1920x1080)

>>121005
You forgot to list my 2nd favorite anime from that year...

 No.121007

File:ozen eating a cookie.png (128.15 KB,500x550)

>>121006
I avoided it purely because it was cgi. Read some of the manga though, it was interesting. I should give the show a try sometime, but it seems it isn't getting an S2 anytime soon so eh. Orange was busy unnecessarily rebooting Trigun instead.

 No.121008

>>121001
It's psychological fiction

 No.121009

Undead is the only of of these that even breaks "okay". I'm not a sakugafag, so pretty colors can't distract me from everything else being boring. People say anime is dead because you show them the anime equivalent of jingling keys in front of someone's face and act like it's the very epitome of modern productions.

 No.121010

Who says anime is dead? I know everyone says everything is 'dead' or 'dying' but cmon

 No.121011

File:[Pizza] Urusei Yatsura (20….jpg (578.06 KB,1920x1080)

>>121009
Well, pessism is cool and all but I was calling the shows gorgeous, which they are. It doesn't need to be some amazing transformative work of fiction involving all 5 senses and stories that people will take about in 2000 years. They look really good in still images and in motion. I do like the dangling keys because the dangling keys are a defining part of the medium as it is a visual one.

 No.121012

Personally I think the reason people get so pessimistic about anime is that they need a break or "off-season" as the seasonal churn causes burnout

 No.121013

Though, after reading articles about professional burnout it seems kind of silly to say people get burnt out on essentially watching tv

 No.121014

>>121011
It's not pessimism, it's saying that people will judge things on the most prominent examples of them. It's like saying gaming is dead because all the AAA titles that get the most visibility are all creatively-bankrupt, highly-monetized, open world crafting live-service trash. But they look pretty and have the most marketing, so that's the face people will judge the medium by.

Looking good is important, but it's not the only thing that matters.

 No.121015

I don't think there's a good argument for calling similarities with people saying anime is dead vs gaming is dead if your point of contention is AAA flops vs indie successes. Anime doesn't really have those indie successes. So what succeeds is what succeeds, whether it be a small project or large. And if you look at what's succeeding or failing each season you could probably make a case for Whether you personally think the industry is in a good place or not.

 No.121016

File:Ikki Tousen - S01E01 - The….jpg (193.77 KB,1920x1080)

People like what they watched as children/teens. Most people around these parts like 2000s era anime because that's when they were first exposed to all the anime released between 1960s-2000s. It seemed like things were higher quality back then because you were only getting exposed to the best of the best. No one was translating sub-par stuff from the 1970s and 1980s back then. If they could avoid it at least.

By the 2010s the west had caught up to the Japanese otaku when it came to series seen and obscure otaku references. Now everything feels worse by comparison because you've been forced into the seasonal churn where you're lucky if there are a couple of good shows airing at the same time. Plus now you have to deal with a lot of outsiders having influence over what is and is not allowed to air/stream.

I seriously doubt there is one show this season as pic related with as many pantsu shots per frame. I've had a hard time finding pantsu shots at all in modern anime. Most of the time it's a black void unless the show is explicitly echii like MahoAko. I miss pantsu in Saturday morning stuff.

There is a lot to be said about the decline in artistic quality as well. As studios look to maximize profits and lay off more starving artists we get more and more cheap and dirty CGI. CGI could look amazing if they took the time. But like flash animation it has been used to churn out worse content faster. The decline we're seeing in art in anime lately is like the decline we saw in western animation after the silver age was over around the start of the 2000s. People call it the "Cal-arts style" these days but really it was just the result of producing content as cheaply as possible.

>>121015
>Anime doesn't really have those indie successes.
It's hard to produce a well animated show on a nothing budget. It still requires the input and work of many different people. All of which need to eat.

I have 100 good ideas for amazing shows filled with art that would make your jaw drop. But I don't have the funds to pay the artists required to make it happen, or the seiyus, or the computer to serve it to 100s of thousands of viewers.

Which is why all the "indie" animation we see is mostly what I described before: Incredibly basic and bland art with little if any story.

We should just be thankful that there is the odd show or movie coming out every few years that still strives to be a quality work. Although it's becoming rarer and rarer for those not to be re-makes or sequels. Since it's very hard to convince a studio to take a chance on an unknown series.

All that said I try to avoid watching things as they're airing these days. Since the BDs usually have so many corrections and stuff I like is usually censored during release.

 No.121017

>>121016
>Since the BDs usually have so many corrections
While that is still true sometimes, it's mostly a thing of the past. With the profits from anime coming primarily from streaming nowadays, there is not much incentive to polish it for a physical release.
>We should just be thankful that there is the odd show or movie coming out every few years that still strives to be a quality work.
That sounds like a serious underestimation of the market. Or maybe you are just cynical about what constitutes striving.

 No.121018

>>121017
>Or maybe you are just cynical about what constitutes striving.
I don't think I am. I've been watching animation from all over the world since childhood. The quality as really declined lately. What I consider good works are things on-par with 1930s-40 Disney and Looney Tunes animation (and all the other greats from the "Golden era"), the great stuff produced by western animators during the "silver age" from the very late 80s-early 2000s (the so-called revival) and from Japan all the high quality stuff from about early 1980s (OVAs) - mid-2000s (TV, movies, and OVAs). We've defiantly seen a decline since then.

This is not unusual for animation. It goes through cycles like that. As we saw in the west between the late 1940s - the mid-1980s. Things will decline into cheap animation made on the absolute smallest budget with the intention of selling toys or products. Then people will get fed up with it and stop watching. Studios will stop putting it out because it's no longer turning a profit. Then some animators will come together to make an amazing work that brings animation back for another 10-15 years. Then the cycle will continue.

What did we see in the west from the 1950s-1980s? Cheaply animated content designed to sell toys and breakfast cereals. What do we see in Japan now? Cheaply animated content designed to sell figures and other forms of merchandise.

You very very rarely get something like Disney's original Alice in Wonderland or a Heavy Metal. But now and again someone puts something like that out. It's just harder to get such a project greenlit in the current environment. The committees aren't sitting down and thinking
>how can we animate something ground breaking?
they're sitting down and thinking
>how many figures and toys can we sell and how cheaply can we produce this?

It's just part of a natural cycle.

 No.121019

>>121015
>if your point of contention is AAA flops vs indie successes
I don't know why you would think it was.

 No.121020

This season is alright, but I don't think things are quite as good as they used to be

 No.121021

I don't know if I'm being contrarian here but personally I am very tired of the waxing nostalgia about 90s and 80s anime.
2000s gets some but there's less probably because of how many series from then are just forgotten and uncared about, so fans from that era probably realize the past is romanticized when it comes to anime.
>>120996
>Urusei Yatsura
Why would I watch this when the manga spoil who wins in like the fifth chapter

 No.121022

maybe not contrarian, but siding with the authoritarian

 No.121023

>>121018
>>121016
>It's just part of a natural cycle.
I don't think so haha

 No.121024

I don't understand how you can write a cynical post like that ignoring how intertwined anime and omake culture have been from the beginning

 No.121025

File:[ASW] Yofukashi no Uta - 0….jpg (686.82 KB,1920x1080)

Hope we get a pantyshot revival soon.

 No.121026

>>121024
>>121023
The cycle is real. Perhaps you just haven't been around long enough to live through it yet. We've seen a massive decline in quality due to several factors but mainly the desire to produce more with less. People were complaining back in the 90s about the extreme dip in quality caused by exporting so much animation work overseas to Korea and other sweatshop nations. Now people point to that stuff and talk about how great it looks compared to what's being produced now. Since compared to what we're getting now it's of higher quality.

They will continue to pay the animators less, work them for longer hours, send more work out-of-country and only green light what they think will be most profitable until the quality dips to the point where people stop watching. Then there will be a lull in new content for a bit. Then someone will come along and take a chance on producing something good that revives the industry. This is how it has always been. Japan is no different than the west in this respect. In fact, it'll probably happen faster because both markets are merging and Japanese stuff is getting censored by the studios themselves now to appeal to western sensibilities.

What I'm tired of is any criticism being labeled doom-and-gloom or being a hater/contrarian/whatever buzzword we're using today. They're churning out 100s of TV animes a year. 1 or 2 will always be decent. But the vast majority are not and were never intended to be good. They were quick cash-grabs hoping to sell enough merchandise to make some kind of positive return on investment. The industry is worse than it has ever been especially for the people actually producing the content. Who are working in an environment that amounts to slavery. You can not expect good art to be pumped out by people working for less than minimum wage and more hours a week than should be legal. Most of which have no job stability at all and get tossed in the streets the moment the current project they're working on is finished.

You can not name 10 passion projects from the last 3-4 years because they are not being produced. No one is funding them. No one is drawing them. No one is willing to take a chance on them.

The only reason anime continues to be produced at all is the fact that merchandise sells and there is an almost endless supply of LNs and manga to adapt quickly. Well that and people are willing to accept the slowly declining quality of the works. It might be garbage but at least it's better than nothing.

Games are the same thing. Along with most everything else you can spend money on. It's like the difference between buying a 2024 model refrigerator and one from the 1960s. The latter is designed to last for your entire life and be easy to repair. The 2024 model is made out of the cheapest material they could use. By the lowest cost slave labor they could fine. It can not be repaired at all and it will break down the moment the warranty period ends. In fact, half the units they ship are broken from the factory. But it's such a cheap product they eat the costs of shipping and send you another one until you get one that works. It's also going to datamine everything it possibly can and send it off to some server somewhere.

The streaming industry is only valuable because they can watch user's viewing habits in real time. They don't even care about what content they're steaming for the most part. All they care about is collecting that sweet metadata.

There has always been crappy anime. But the ratio of good anime to poor anime has continued to tip towards the latter as times goes by. It'll keep on doing so because that's how this industry and every other industry works now. People refuse to demand quality and they refuse to boycott the producers of content and products that are of poor quality. They'll just shurg and say "what can you do?" or they'll defend poor quality stuff to their dying breath because they're come to view the producer as their friend or something of that nature. I don't really understand it myself but that's how they behave.

You can show most people a video game from 2024 using the same engine as a 2012 game with poor graphics. They'll oooh and aaahh and claim the graphics look amazing. They do it because advertising works and they were told it's the new shiny. So it's obviously the new shiny and the greatest thing ever. Anyone that says otherwise no matter how well thought out their arguments and information might be is obviously just a hater. If you keep on trying to point out how crappy everything is becoming they'll cut you out of their life all together. Because who wants to hang around a buzzkill and a hater?

 No.121027

>>121026
You are preaching to the choir here, people agree that the industry could be better in many ways and that there are only couple excellent series a year, and some even go as far as to say the entire industry is just advertising as it is adaptations heavy.
The reason people say you are being pessimistic is because you're talking to the hardest core of fans who can find enjoyment in things that are good to OK if they are not burnt out.

 No.121028

I also dont think its unreasonable for young people to want to see the good in modern things when they are constantly told everything sucks now compared to how it was before (which is true for a lot of things, but it gets frustrating to hear)

 No.121029

File:slowgirl.jpg (54.94 KB,789x587)

I loooooove reading giant walls of text on /jp/. It's my favorite pastime.

 No.121030

File:1626349446880.png (515.27 KB,2076x2337)

>>121029
2D/Random is serious business.

 No.121031

>>121026
What do you think of mygo!!!! I would have replied more seriously instead of making a shitpost ending in haha if this was /qa/, you can think I wasn't pretending to be retarded if you want but denying their main argument is the type of thing to point out when you want to troll someone
>What I'm tired of is any criticism being labeled doom-and-gloom or being a hater/contrarian/whatever buzzword we're using today
I'm tired of the opposite that is nostalgiafagging (that's the word I'm using) which is much more common. I never see people like you being called contrarians. Not talking about gayming here, that has gotten much worse and even normies know that
>>121027
This

 No.121032

File:039.png (67.32 KB,351x349)

the norms the normos the norpsies the

 No.121033

>>121032
futsuu no hito

 No.121034

>>121033
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 No.121035

>>121032
(CHARACTER IS NORMAL)

 No.121036

the middle of season 3 kind of dragged out for me, but it was by that point I was exhausted.

 No.121037

I can agree with some sentiments of declining quality, though in my opinion this has more to do with source material trends. My nose is more on the manga side of things, but it's a massive deluge of low quality waifu bait garbage being churned out, the amount of isekai I have to wade through to find something passable is astounding. I'm honestly just sick of it. Webnovels get manga adaptations which get anime adaptations. At least a few gems are getting licensed into adaptations, so hopefully the next go around of copycats will try to make something good until that gets run into the ground.

 No.121038

anime is reclining

 No.121039

There's plenty of great anime every season and I don't really give a shit about the opinions of people who just look at a seasonal chart and immediately dismiss everything, or even don't bother doing that.

 No.121040

>>121037
Manga's always kind of been like that because of the sheer volume of content made yearly, many of it made to be disposable, easily digestible 4koma stuff to be read on commutes

 No.121750

File:Dungeon Meshi - S01e11 (1….webm (8.52 MB,1280x720)

To me the most recent episode of Dungeon Meshi cemented it as one which'll last far beyond this season. The fluid animation expertly expressed the frantic movements of the party as they're forced to adjust and readjust their strategy mid fight because felling a dragon isn't as simple a task as a plan may make it out to be. The creativity of the author was on full display with the ingenuity used to craft up new plans with each changing situation, having the party using more and more unorthodox means as supplies dwindled, traps were overcome, and unaccounted for variables rose up. Focusing a bit on Falin in a memory sequence to contrast later with the reality somewhat brushed off at times as Laios holds up her dirty skull. It felt like a natural DnD boss encounter, and the score helped massively with propping up that atmosphere. Very interested to see where the story goes from here given there's an entire cour left and the starting goal's been somewhat accomplished.

 No.121760

File:dm.jpg (51.74 KB,582x340)

>>121750
I wonder why the scores for the Dungeon Meshi anime and manga is so different on MAL though. I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with the adaptation. The manga does get a lot better later on though. Anime has this problem of the initial impression of it affecting the rest of it too much.

 No.121761

>>121760
Anime fans also tend to deflate their scores a bit

 No.121762

File:frieren.jpg (40.85 KB,622x286)

>>121761
The same isn't true for Frieren however. I'm pretty sure the score of the manga was a bit lower before it started airing too.

 No.121903

File:Dungeon-1.mp4 (Spoiler Image,7.99 MB,1280x720)

>>121750
Went and looked up who was doing the composition for this anime since it fits the setting so well and honestly sounds amazing. It's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasunori_Mitsuda who you may recognize as the composer for Chrono Trigger. Unsurprisingly, someone that can compose amazing RPG soundtracks is also capable of composing a great score for a fantasy anime. The ressurection scene this episode was probably the most beautiful moment of the season with just a perfect culmination of everything from animation to sound giving perfect weight to the most important point of the story yet.

 No.121904

>>121903
Oh, Mitsuda is a legend, yeah. Lots of fantastic soundtracks. I think I posted about the Xenogears soundtrack recently and it's one of his greatest works among a man that has lots of great works. I've posted about his work in Soul Sacrifice, too, and well he just has a lot of legendary soundtracks, really. Chrono Cross's soundtrack is something everyone has to listen to even if they'll never play the game. Soul Sacrifice, too. Oh, and Xenosaga's soundtrack is truly remarkable since they splurged on an orchestra.

 No.121931

>>121762
Anime fans also tend to inflate their scores a bit

 No.122073

File:frieren 261.mp4 (29.23 MB,1920x1080)

Frieren is the greatest anime of all time according to both anilist and MAL ratings. The ratings are like this after it's concluded, too, so it's not a situation where people give it amazing ratings after 3 episodes and then temper their ratings to reality. Obviously it doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things, but it's interesting to see so many people think so highly of it. It's definitely a fantastic show, but it wasn't my favorite of the season. (Poor Undead Unluck comparatively unknown...)

There's just something appealing about good ol' fashioned generic fantasy without that isekai stuff attached to it. It also helps that it looked absolutely gorgeous, although the 'post-processing' filters were a bit too much at times when you see it plastered on relatively slow, relaxing scenes. I think Frieren is a good example of animation that simply isn't possible with traditional methods, at least in a reasonable timeframe. The lightning stuff would take far more of effort and skill to do on a piece of paper. I can understand how people might dislike it since it makes things look a bit video game-y at times, but I think it really adds to the scenes. (also I love video games)
It's painful to reduce the quality to upload this on kissu. I can't wait to see the BDs.

 No.122074

>>122073
the coolest "black hole" spell in anime repurposed as a sort of railgun

 No.122080

>>122073
Lauding something for not being isekai is weird when it references video game logic so strongly.
It's the post-credits of a standard JRPG. Which is not to say it's bad, but it's playing with the same cliches that people usually hate isekai for. (hence the retarded term "native isekai")

 No.122082

>>122074
3 anime with black holes in a single season, isn't it?
Weird.

 No.122084

File:[ASW] Sousou no Frieren - ….jpg (402.57 KB,1920x1080)

>>122073
>Frieren is the greatest anime of all time according to both anilist and MAL ratings
I don't agree with that but I certainly need to make some space for it in my top 100 now. Not sure what I should remove though... It was a great show, but I have my fears that S2 won't have this much of a positive reception since the score for the source material isn't as amazing. I haven't read the manga in its entirety yet though. The architecture and scenery looked fantastic. It was one of my favorite things about it. A lot of effort and passion was put into it for sure.

>>122080
>It's the post-credits of a standard JRPG
I wouldn't say that. Frieren is more of a typical fantasy setting. JRPGs almost never have elves or Tolkien stuff in general.

 No.122086

>>122084
>I wouldn't say that. Frieren is more of a typical fantasy setting. JRPGs almost never have elves or Tolkien stuff in general.
The adventure started with an audience with the king, being handed a pittance of money and being sent on the adventure.
A video game MC's usual rudeness to NPCs was then lampshaded, getting them almost killed.
Later, they went from dungeon to dungeon, exploring them in a completionist's approach, and from side quest to side quest, delaying the main task for a decade, while the final boss waited for them in his castle at the end of the world (despite trying to organize a war) the entire time.

These are interactive gaming cliches, not passive story-telling ones, because they don't make sense for passive story-telling.

 No.122087

File:deedlit.webm (2.21 MB,957x720)

>>122086
It has some isekai tropes, yes, but that doesn't make it a "standard JRPG". Stuff like Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger is what comes to mind when you think about it and Frieren isn't anything like them. Same thing for Dungeon Meshi. I wonder why it's so rare for Japanese games to have traditional fantasy settings since this isn't the case in anime/manga as there are quite a few examples.

 No.122088

>>122087
Thanks for the clarification.

 No.122092

>>122084
Season 2 will have what's in my opinion (and of many people honestly) the peak of the Frieren manga, so unless they botch it horribly I think it's bound to be similar or even better than this season.
Frieren's manga has a very good rating on the places I visit. It's better than the anime, I'd say, but that might just be because I don't like fight scenes and I love the absolute emotionless faces all characters have.

 No.122102

>>122073
Frieren is an interesting show. It relies on stereotypical isekai fantasy tropes for some world building (demon king, dungeon diving, OP main characters) but it's choice to take place after the world ending event is over, allows it to explore more grounded stories without being burdened by a sense of urgency to save the world or a need for progression to the demon king fight.
>>122084
>Tolkien stuff
I do like the Tokien influences in Frieren.
Elves shepherding humans and protecting them from demons, seems like it comes directly from Tolkien. The comparison between demons and orcs shouldn't be overlooked either. Both are unequivocally evil creatures that exist only as a mockery of other races. Also there is the comparison between Aureole and The Halls of Mandos. A lot of the setting in Frieren is drawn from Tolkien, more so than the usually isekai fantasy story.

 No.122103

>>122102
When it comes to saying "isekai fantasy tropes" at what point is it really isekai stuff vs simply typical fantasy stuff. Take the maou for instance, it isn't really that unique to isekai, Sauron is the maou, Maleficent is the maou, etc.

 No.122105

>>122103
"Isekai Fantasy" might be the wrong descriptor and it may be better as "Japanse-Western Fantasy" or "DnD inspired Japanese Fantasy". Hallmarks of the setting are anachronistic clothing, boarding schools, general setting is a mix of early victorian and late medival periods, distinct power levels, precursor civilization has more of a sci-fy than fantasy aesthetic, dungeon diving and adventurer guilds. As for story elements; some divine entity begins the story and the main character has some overpowered ability, main character gathers a harem, and central story is about defeating a demon king.

 No.122106

>>122105
Yeah, I think the west has now for years struggled to put its finger on the weird meta-cosmos that is Japanese western fantasy, and ended up defaulting to calling it isekai.

 No.122109

>>122106
I sometimes wonder how much Japanese Western Fantasy is the way it is because it developed detached from the cultural roots that underpin Western Fantasy (particularly Tolkien's works). Western Fantasy doesn't exist without Western Mythology and Fairytales or the Western Christianity, particularly the experiences of Christianity within Rome and the Christian-Muslim conflicts.
I don't know much about Far-Eastern or Japanese Mythology and Fairytales to really grasp any influences they may have on the Japanese Western Fantasy but I would bet they are as fundamental as the influence the West's have on it's fantasy. The one influence I am somewhat aware of is Journey to the West with it's group dynamic of 4-5 members being the basis for many Japanese Western Fantasy stories. I wouldn't be surprised if the male character with a harem of girls has a basis in some older stories outside of just being a vehicle for the male viewer to self-insert.

 No.122110

>>122109
>The one influence I am somewhat aware of is Journey to the West with it's group dynamic of 4-5 members being the basis for many Japanese Western Fantasy stories.
I strongly doubt that.
There are two influences that are closer and more pressing:
1) (if you actually need an external source): RPGs traditionally have fairly limited party sizes
2) simple conservation of attention: The more characters you drag around, the more characters need to be given attention. 4-6 main characters is standard for CGDCT as well as other genres.
>I wouldn't be surprised if the male character with a harem of girls has a basis in some older stories
That is not actually very old as a stereotype. The harem genre only really developed in the 80s and 90s, and that was initially outside of fantasy, into which it was eased by way of urban fantasy and the "magical girl fell into my lap" genre. Oh My Goddess, Tenchi Muyo etc.

 No.122115

File:und boat original.mp4 (12.11 MB,1920x1080)

>>122084
That image shows my one issue with Frieren's visuals and it's something I also blame other shows for, notably Musoku Tensei: too many filters! I bet it would look better without the haziness and film grain and maybe there's even chromatic aberration there!
To make my point I'll upload a scene from Undead Unluck episode 11 and then lazily apply filters to it to help demonstrate my point.

Here is the beautiful original! (there's some audio issue with the encode that didn't allow DaVinci to load it...)

 No.122116

File:und boat processed.mp4 (12.68 MB,1920x1068)

>>122115
And here is is with the Mushoku Frieren filters!

 No.122117

>>122116
i see the issue now

 No.122118

File:[SubsPlease] Sousou no Fri….jpg (385.83 KB,1920x1080)

>>122117
I actually made it a bit too blurry, but I think the film grain is still noticeable there at least. I need to learn Davinci one of these days so I can actually see the preview in full screen. I'd like to see a 'raw' version without the film grain and chromatic aberration, but the glowing and other effects look great to me.

 No.122119

>>122115
Wait, so the shab gets her long hair back??? Maybe it's worth watching then

 No.122123

File:elf.jpeg (476.89 KB,1333x1920)

>>122102
I disagree with the orcs part. In Frieren's world demons are a kind of monster that developed on its own according to regular evolutionary principles by specializing on aggressive mimicry and magic, meanwhile Middle Earth's orcs truly are the result of evil corruption from fallen higher beings. The former is only a mockery as much as a flytrap mocks flowers.
I'd like to point out as well that there is no clerical school of magic in Tolkien or even a priesthood, much less a profession of academic sorcerers, those are taken from elsewhere. Clerics in particular are a super D&D thing, the way they conduct miracles and relate to their god is actually kinda weird, especially here where they're chosen at random and have to make sense of it. The two stories share the gradual disappearance of elves too but the relationship there is rather superificial, in Frieren they're simply dying off due to autism and war while in Tolkien there's some fundamental astral destiny stuff going on with the fëa and hröa and other things that elude me, as well as in Frieren magical powers among men increasing as time goes on running contrary to what happens in Middle Earth.
I think Tolkien's influence on Frieren is exaggerated, perhaps because of how sincere the two are. It still lines up with Dragon Quest and Lodoss far more closely, both ultimately stemming from D&D. Same as Dungeon Meshi and Goblin Slayer.

>>122103
I'd argue the maou of current otaku media is more of an occupation than a true force of evil or antichrist figure like a dark lord proper is. More of a commander, king, or emperor, formally recognized as such by everyone around them.
So you find Helck starting off with a tournament to decide who the new maou will be, an office that in its setting implies no evil, it's simply the king of the inhumans. In Hataraku Maou or lv1 Maou after they've stopped being regnant they slide away to pass their time doing something else entirely. Sauron would never do that, because he's THE DARK LORD and his fallen nature defines him, he's truly the devil with Christian temptation and all, whereas such evil is often missing from Jap characters bearing the title. A lot of the time there's a catch to it which makes it differ from a DL, maybe it was a matter of circumstance, there was a misunderstanding, they were never evil to begin with, akshually it's the humans that are evil, or it's simply a joke.

A perfect example I believe is the maou from Maoujou, whose crime is... kidnapping a princess. And that's it really, he's playing defense, concerned with game design to match the heroes' advance, and doesn't try to pull any kind of invasion or anything or corruption or what have you even as they fly all the way to the capital. All he is, is the 王 of the 魔, hardly a harbinger of ruin for anyone in the story. The one feature he can be said to share with Sauron is leadership, but not a single other thing. He's also part of a royal family, succeeding his father, so even there he's rather mundane. Compare this with the opposing yuusha-tachi who aren't necessarily the chosen ones either but rather fulfilling an occupation too, a small group of people given the responsiblity of fighting back. See Himmel failing to take out the sword but going on to achieve victory anyways.

All in all there are commonalities, but that's because all of fantasy as we know it originates with Tolkien. It was certainly shaken up by RPGs, it seems replays became popular in the late 80s and THE replay, Lodoss, was first published in 1988, which I consider to be the true forefather of Jap high fantasy, Slayers too started coming out in 1989. Even the fat fucking elf references Lodoss right at the start. Meanwhile Wheel of Time would be published in 1990 and A Song of Ice and Fire in '91, I think those are some important points of divergence that could explain the state of things. Earlier stories like The Sword of Shannara and Conan did go into D&D, and therefore into Jap fantasy, but past the 80s it seems that's where we could draw the line.

 No.122127

File:Undead.Unluck.S01E14.1080p….jpg (212.21 KB,1920x1080)

>>122119
No, she doesn't. You should watch it for many other reasons, though. I hope someone here watches Undead Unluck as a result of my 150 posts about it

 No.122128

>>122123
>Clerics in particular are a super D&D thing,
It's literally biblical.

 No.122129

>>122128
Spellcasting isn't biblical.

 No.122130


 No.122131

>>122130
Miracles are acts of God, not caused by mere incantations. Clerics also have a reusable pool of magical power that's totally different from divine grace.

 No.122132

>>122131
>not caused by mere incantations.
And the same is true for DnD clerics. They call for the power of their gods.
(in fact, through bad writing the same is true for wizards, they all get their power from the goddess of magic)

 No.122133

>>122132
Then why do casters have limited powers if every higher being is constantly agreeing with them?

 No.122134

>>122133
Don't ask me how exactly the lore works. I never read the actual rule books. I only played games and talked about those with other players.

If you've ever played Baldur's Gate though, you may remember Viconia, who lost all her spellcasting powers when she disobeyed Lolth and would have died if not for the sacrifice of her brother.

 No.122135

>>122134
Well, there you have the difference: gods in D&D give you a measurable automatically-refilling power source for you to do whatever you want with as long as they're okay with you as a person without giving much mind to limited individual actions, but that's not how miracles work. In the Bible, or at least according to Christians, miracles happen because God decided to either intervene directly or less directly with the Holy Spirit acting through something or someone, you can't call upon God to help you anytime because grace is unearned and undeserved, a gift by a loving father. Working harder or achieving more things won't grant it to you, as per Ephesians 2:8-9:
>For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith
>—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—
>not by works, so that no one can boast.
Whereas clerics and paladins REQUIRE devotion and work to obtain their powers in the first place, the biblical God can act through whoever He wants whenever He wants and it's a fleeting thing. In RPGs characters also grow stronger and learn more spells by earning experience as time passes, but God doesn't ever use spells, slots, or mana, he can do anything limitlessly, and Elijah doesn't need to carry around a spellbook with Revivify in it.
For a comparison with polytheism and how it differs there too there's this video that includes the matter of veneration and priesthood:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3DgX78Qi_c

 No.122136

>>122123
> The former is only a mockery
Mockery wasn't the best word for the comparison of orcs and demons. Speaking strictly from what I've seen in the anime, demons are a reflection of elves, similar to how orcs are a reflection of elves. In Frieren demons and elves are actually quite similar, with their main differences being an inherent malevolence towards humans and presence of horns vs pointy ears. Both species dedicate their long lives to honing a particular skill and generally have detached, almost apathetic, views towards humans. Notably elves in both settings serve to guide humans towards future in which humanity is the ruler of the world; while orcs and demons are directly opposed to this view and seek to create a world in which there respective leaders are in charge (Morgoth/Sauron and The Demon King respectively).
Frieren does lack the more intentional moral reasoning for demon creation but the Demon King and demons serve a similar role that Morgoth/Sauron and orcs play in the Tolkien; as ancient, evil creatures opposed to elves and the "rise of man".

>All in all there are commonalities, but that's because all of fantasy as we know it originates with Tolkien
With respect to your discussion of Dark Lords earlier, I think it's important to note that Dark Lords in a lot of Japanese media do still have a passing resemblance to Sauron but like you said they are not really like Sauron upon closer inspection. The lack of Christian influence and meta physical evil in the Dark Lords' character says something about what the culture/author considers important about the story.

I appreciate the bits of history and chronological context, I don't really read but it seems like i should atleast watch the Lodoss adaptation to get some context of Japanese fantasy.

 No.122138

File:genre fantasy.png (528.5 KB,485x1488)

>>122136
Ahhhh, a mirror image. Alright, alright, that makes much more sense, yeah, I can see that.
>says something about what the culture/author considers important about the story
To be fair, the Encyclopedia of Fantasy in its entry on DARK LORD states that "DLs are frequently rooted in whatever political or religious figures happened to be worrying readers at the time" (interestingly Paul Atreides matches this) but that of Sauron's meaning and actions "much genre fantasy simply copies this." So really, more like what worried Tolkien, and inherited by those that came afterwards.
>seems like i should atleast watch the Lodoss adaptation
Super recommended as a historical thing, I've seen Frieren repeatedly described as Lodoss Afterstory. Eisen's grandpa is in it.

BY THE WAY CHECK OUT THIS BEAUTIFUL ENTRY ON GENRE FANTASY FROM 1997 ABSOLUTE GOLD

 No.122149

>>122135
>a measurable automatically-refilling power source for you to do whatever you want with as long as they're okay with you as a person
No, that is not quite right. They feed you power constantly. When Bhaal was dead, people were legitimately surprised that his clerics continued to receive power from him.
It's probably more like how the internet works. All users can access an internet forum. But that does not mean that the website is on everybody's computers. It's just automatically accessible so long as you have an internet connection, the correct address, and haven't gotten your account banned for misconduct.
The idea that specific individuals are more divinely empowered than others is also strongly implied by the grouping of the miracles towards a small group of miracle workers (and in fact, Judea had a concept of prophets and healers. Later, during the middle ages, Christians continued to follow this idea and had actual fights over the possession of certain holy remains that they were sure had miraculous properties.

>but God doesn't ever use spells, slots, or mana,
That's just complaining about the fact that DnD is a game.

 No.122156

>>122149
Well, akshually, vancian magic is older than D&D. The memorization of spells and their usage through slots as ammunition was first written about in The Dying Earth, a novel which faced none of the limitations of being a game:
>Turjan closed the book, forcing the spell back into oblivion. He robed himself with a short cape, tucked a blade into his belt, fitted the amulet holding Laccodel’s Rune to his wrist. Then he sat down and from a journal chose the spells he would take with him. What dangers he might meet he could not know, so he selected three spells of general application: the Excellent Prismatic Spray, Phandal’s Mantle of Stealth, and the Spell of the Slow Hour.
Then after using it the spell goes poof and you have to re-memorize it again later. The fact that God doesn't use prepared spells is of great importance, because neither does Gandalf or any faerie or daimon of auld, but Goblin Slayer's Priestess and Frieren do, with accompanying finite energy sources that the previous set lacks. This is a specific kind of spellcasting that Vance formulated with his mixture of sci-fi and fantasy and didn't exist prior to that, and D&D makes it weirder by going from Vance's world of scientific wizardry as the sole source of power to a setting where all these different sources of magic coexist.

Now, God's grace itself is indivisible (or at least so has a Catholic told me), that's why every fragment of the True Cross has miraculous healing powers that are not proportional to their size, they don't scale. Relics like that do appear in the bible serving as further evidence that God acted through them and thus post-mortem miracles are a requirement for the canonization of a saint. That certain people are closer to God is one of the principles behind intercession, so explains the Catechism that:
>956 The intercession of the saints. "Being more closely united to Christ, those who dwell in heaven fix the whole Church more firmly in holiness. . . . They do not cease to intercede with the Father for us, as they proffer the merits which they acquired on earth through the one mediator between God and men, Christ Jesus . . . . So by their fraternal concern is our weakness greatly helped."
But it's always up to God, everything down to the smallest detail, they cannot use this closeness to coerce him or the like. The fact that clerics can continue to use magic even after Bhaal's death does set a difference there because all miracles are acts of God, by God, not of the associated person, it reinforces that the fantasy deity is a source rather than an actor. The internet is not a person either, while God is.

 No.122157

File:R-1711382303199.jpg (108.87 KB,1024x768)

>>122156
>The internet is not a person

 No.122158

>>122156
I will concede that DnD clerics are not literally biblical but merely inspired by the bible.
We also have to make allowance for the fact that DnD is in fact polytheistic. While there is an entity that is supposed to be the stand-in for God (being called AO), the gods that people interact with are not omnipotent, are not omnipresent and are certainly not omniscient. They trust their agents to do the right thing in their names.

 No.122159

>>122158
Did not mean to sage with the second post.

 No.122174

>>122158
Exactly, that's why I'd rather describe it as a deposit more than anything else. Its gods aren't able to keep up with all of their followers like an omni-ist deity would.

 No.122344

File:[Subsplease] Sengoku Youko….mp4 (20.2 MB,1920x1080)

The climax of the OP of Sengoku Youko looks really beautiful. It's hard to compete with the other stuff that was airing, but it's worth mentioning that it looks great, too. The more impactful moments of the story definitely have an extra notch of quality to them.
I've watched the first 12 seconds at the beginning of this clip so many times, the music and the visuals are just so good.
I wonder what will look amazing in Spring?

 No.122369

the lainteens

 No.122397

File:precure allstars f 1.mp4 (28.51 MB,1280x720)

Precure Allstars F didn't really have much of a story, but the visuals were really good. The scenery in the SoL-y parts was especially beautiful.

 No.122398

File:precure allstars finalemp4.mp4 (37.71 MB,1280x720)

>>122397
Well, SoL-y is the wrong term to use. The happy parts? The uhh... casual? My brain can't seem to function.
Anyway, I wanted to upload more of the finale but there's just too much animation and I'd have to upload 4 files that are a minute each and it would be 120mb. So instead here is the last minute of the finale. Spoilery in the sense that you'll know what it looks like, but not spoilery in the sense that it follows every other villain-of-the-week formula.

WHO DO YOU THINK WE ARE?
Ah, I just realized I kept the subs in. Well, it takes 10 minute for my CPU to 'search' for the part of the video to encode so I don't want to do it again.

 No.122626

File:Delicious in Dungeon - S01….jpg (239.15 KB,1920x1080)

I think the biggest issue Dungeon Meshi has is that it's an ADHD test to see if you can stick with it and separate the subtle movements of the plot in the first half from the movements of other foodporn bores. 13 episodes in and there's been a major development for both the goals of the cast and the dungeon itself. The anime is showing itself (in plain daylight now) to be far more than what you'd expect of a typical cooking anime, yet there are still those that dropped it in the beginning turning their nose to it for being tricked by the facade.

Even then, I think the facade portion of the anime was played well enough on its own to have been one of the better foodporns in the genre. Especially given that it had more dungeoning and adventure than 95% do. Kinda funny how the painting episode which I thought was just a really well done one-off session turned out to be so much more integral to the story than I ever expected. I wonder if Laios really was able to make a mark on the history of the dungeon by entering into those paintings or if the lunatic magician just resides a portion of his conscious in them. Hmmmm

 No.122627

>>122626
Yes, making the first several episodes nothing but boring foodporn is an excellent way to ensure that only people who want boring foodporn are still watching when you stop being boring foodporn. Truly a genius strategy.

 No.122631

>>122627
One could say the author was simply pretending to be retarded

 No.122632

File:[Trix] Dungeon Meshi S01E1….jpg (182.39 KB,1280x720)

>>122626
>>122627
Yes, it's something that seems average and quirky at first glance with its topic about cuisine, but gets a lot more interesting later on as noted by me in: >>121760
Anime is affected too much by first impressions and the "3 ep rule" thing. It's also a lot harder to progress through an anime's history than it is to progress through a manga history.

New OP is a lot better than the first one by the way. Just started watching it. The first OP did not help with trying not to make the show seem monotonous.

 No.122634

>>122627
The heavier themes were always present, they were just pushed out of mind of the party so that they could trudge along and not fall into despair at the overbearing task in front of them which was descending into the depths of the dungeon and taking on a dragon with a ragtag party of 4 adventurers with a limited supply of goods and a limited amount of time.

 No.122636

>>122634
That's a meaningless point. A story's theme's are determined by what the author gives focus.
Even if an anime declares at the beginning of the story that the world is ending, say, with a rolling text before the first episode of K-On!, that alone doesn't make the setting of K-On! apocalyptic. It's still the same series, except with an odd opening.
Fantasy series routinely deal with technically very dark stuff, but they tend to focus on the heroic aspect of it all because that's usually what the readers are there for. If we for instance learn that war is terrible, it's commonly in a montage where the hero emotes about the senseless loss of life, before the story moves on, in much lighter tones.

This is not a criticism of Dungeon Meshi.

 No.122643

>>122632
>the "3 ep rule" thing.
Exists specifically to counter how often anime give false first impressions. Grabbing the audience is a necessity even in forms of media where the audience only has to show up once, like movies or some games. If you can't do something interesting in an hour of screentime, an audience that values their time will leave.

>>122634
Have heavy themes doesn't make something entertaining or interesting. Even after 150 chapters of getting invested in the characters and wanting to see them succeed, I was barely able to keep forcing myself through the slew of 3-gatsu cooking chapters because it's horribly boring even if it does serve a narrative purpose (though not enough to justify the amount of time spent on it).

 No.122652

File:5f6183be4417cbbde44a1c3a53….jpg (531.87 KB,1572x1194)

I remember that riiight when it came out and I posted >>118166 I was feeling rather ehhh combined with how I do think a majority of tabletop-based fantasy either doesn't manage to be as interesting as or doesn't elicit as strong a response as a good gaming experience, or just /tg/ stories really. It's much more impactful when I'm the one without spell slots trying to run the fuck away. I wouldn't have paid any attention to DM if its reputation didn't precede it, and I still think that's a bad sign, but I have a fairly more positive view of it now.

Now, it's not exactly MiA as I compared it to then but from early on the details it put into its food autism gave the hints of a worldbuilding that, although it may seem generic, is far more thought out than most fantasyland fiction and constantly relevant to the plot. The one that's really stuck with me is the rainbow ice cream made from impromptu holy water and the chills of dispelled specters. Or its thoroughness in rebuilding the bone structure of everything the dragon had digested before carrying out a resurrection using its entrails. That's special, that's unique, a great mix of what it has going for it. But the episode when it's Chilchuck getting trapped in a room figuring out how to get out, not so much. What I hope it'll do now that it's getting super serious is continue to rely on this worldbuilding, like it happened in today's episode with its twist on a practice that's been well established and the goodwill you'd typically expect from it. They're introducing a lot more characters too, but I haven't seen anyone voice displeasure over it so I expect it to work out. Pretty nice stuff. (I also did just heavily spoil myself by looking at fanart and I gotta say it looks cool.)

 No.123800

File:[Subsplease] Astro Note - ….mp4 (9.98 MB,1280x720)

How do you feel about 3D cars?
It's kind of weird to think how it's become noteworthy to have 2D cars; it's something I actively noticed in Astro Note. Although the "car" is 2D here you can tell that they kind of resisted moving the camera around much since it's extra work.
As a whole I don't really care that much about vehicles being 3D. Of course I'd prefer them to be 2D since they look far better, but I guess if corners are going to be cut somewhere then I think cars are possibly the least offensive things to skimp on. It's a bunch of straight lines and they're not particularly expressive if the story isn't centered on them. It kind of extends to mechanical stuff, too, like the weapon here. In 3D modeling there's two main branching paths that people specialize in and hard surfaces for man-made stuff is separate from natural things. Organic material is far more nuanced for reasons that are probably obvious.

I think it's also worth mentioning that Astro Note has a nice style to it. An anime original with a great retro-ish cartoony look. The dog in particular is very fun.

 No.123803

>>123800
God, that looks terrible. Even the animated parts feel static. Nothing interacts with anything else.
The wheels turn into rockets, while the car's motion is perfectly monotonous.
Girl is sitting perfectly still while her cube turns into a massive gun.

this is cheap as shit.

 No.123804

File:[SubsPlease] Astro Note - ….jpg (289.27 KB,1920x1080)

>>123803
Do you have an opinion on what I said in the post itself? I even mentioned that the camera is static because they didn't want to "animate" a car. It's very much not an action show so it's kind of surprising they tried at all, and without a 3D car as well, but they did.
Dealing with "this is shit, that is shit, the thing you like is shit, everything is shit" people is exhausting when people actually want to discuss things.

 No.123805

>>123804
>Do you have an opinion on what I said in the post itself?
Sorry, I just skipped past that initially.
I don't really feel very purist about the 2D/3D thing. I prefer when the final product looks like a single thing, rather than a bad mesh of handdrawn animation and CGI. But other than that preference, I think that animators should use CGI wherever they think it is appropriate.
>It's very much not an action show so it's kind of surprising they tried at all,
I would argue that they did not.
Ignoring the short lane-change maneuvering thing, I am not complaining about bad animation. The clip's defining feature is the lack of animation.

I am not demanding explosions here, or high-speed action. I am asking for the animated objects to visibly respond to stimuli.




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